The Voice of 'Inside Out's Bing Bong on That Big, Tearjerking Scene (Spoilers!)

Jordan Zakarin

Writer

Yahoo Movies•June 30, 2015

Believe it or not, Pixar’s Inside Out could have been even more tear-jerking. (Warning to those who haven’t seen the movie yet: Spoilers to follow.)

The animated smash hit goes deep inside the mind of an 11-year-old girl named Riley, with the emotions like Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) and Sadness (voiced by Phyllis Smith) taking lead roles both on screen and in the hearts and minds of audience members. In the video above, Richard Kind, who voices Riley’s imaginary friend (and the audience’s breakout favorite) Bing Bong, tells Yahoo Movies that one of the film’s most important and heart-stopping scenes was almost a rougher emotional journey.

Late in the film, Bing Bong and Joy fall into the Memory Dump, the black chasm where memories disappear forever. It’s a frightening place, and Bing Bong, who was already fading from Riley’s mind, is distraught as he tries to tell Joy how hopeless their situation is. (And remember, this is just before Bing Bong makes the ultimate sacrifice to save Joy and the core memories.)

“The version that came out for the public was about 20 to 40 seconds shorter than the scene we recorded, because it got a little too hard-hitting,” Kind said, referring to the moment then they first land in the Dump. “I asked [the director], ‘Do I have to get laughs with this?’ And they said ‘No, this is a sober moment.” And I told Joy, ‘Don’t you understand? We are forgotten! We don’t count anymore!”

Kind says he sobbed through multiple takes. “I wanted that to come through actually,” he says. Ultimately, some of his dialogue in that scene was cut — but that doesn’t mean the final edit kept our eyes dry.